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Spurling came behind and looked over his shoulder carelessly, not expecting to see anything which was of much concern. Then he started, so violently that the portrait fell from Granger's hand. "My God, it was a woman!" he moaned. "A woman! A woman!" Granger turned upon him, willing to be angry; but he saw that he had no need of further revenge.
Spurling, and her now accepted suitor, resumed their seats. "You'll be as good as your word, my charmer," whispered the executioner. "Of course," responded the widow, heaving a deep sigh. "Oh! Jack! Jack! you little know what a price I've paid for you!" "Well, I'm glad those women are gone," remarked Shotbolt.
"You've postponed it a long time; it was at Drunkman's Shallows that you were going to do it first. Your excuse then was that you weren't John Granger, but your baser self. You were always a good hand at excuses. And pray who are you now?" "Throw away that revolver," shouted Granger, in a voice that was thick with anger. Spurling tossed it a couple of yards away. "No, that won't do.
I'd give half my money yes, the whole of it, if you had the stuff in you that young Spurling has. I mean it." He stopped, then began again: "I'm going to give you one chance more, and only one. It's quicksilver, kill or cure, and a stiff dose at that. I've just been talking with Spurling and his two friends.
Spurling himself had said that he had not sunk so low as that. Yet, in case it might be so, he would keep his word and help him to escape from the Mounted Police, but not from himself. He would be the executioner if there must be one. The law should not rob him of his revenge. He would save Spurling's life in case he might need to take it.
Granger watched her while she was speaking, wondering whether he was hearing the very truth this time. "And, if I do as you ask me, what will happen to Spurling?" he said. She drew him nearer to herself. "I hate that man," she whispered; "let him die as he deserves." "And why didn't you tell me everything at first?"
To one thing he had instantly made up his mind, that, if this should prove to be more than a fancy of delirium the miraged portrayal of a villainy which had actually occurred he would track the assassin as he had tracked Spurling, till the last ounce of his strength failed him, that Spurling might be avenged.
They were all around me." "Who were all around you?" "Those who had come to take me to be hanged." Granger gasped, and shrank aside. Then his worst conjecture was correct it was as bad as that! murder had been done. Spurling drew himself up suddenly, throwing back his hands and uncovering a face of ghastly paleness.
"I'd like to go out with you to the trawls, Jim, to-morrow morning," said Percy. "Glad to have you," responded Spurling, heartily. Two hours before light they were gliding out of the cove in the Barracouta, bound for Medrick Shoal, four miles to the eastward. "Percy," said Jim as the sloop rolled rhythmically on the long Atlantic swells, "I want to tell you something.
He went over detail by detail all that had seemed to him to happen; and even then, when it fitted reasonably together, he could not be certain. It was too monstrous that Spurling should have become like that! He would not believe it. Then his anxiety for Mordaunt sprang up and commenced to craze him. The terrible question throbbed through his mind, "Is Mordaunt dead?"
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